This particular night, as she sat with her hot forehead pressed against the cool glass, was the longest of them all. And the questions she asked herself were ones that would determine her future.

When the dark night ended and her decision was made, she crept desolately back to bed as a grey dawn seeped through the gap in the curtains, echoing her mood.

‘I have come to say goodbye,’ she said as Laurent’s look of hope disintegrated and fell like dust into the stony ground below him. ‘I cannot betray my parents. You must understand why.’

He looked down at his feet. With effort, he said, ‘I understand.’

‘And now, it’s best that I go. Thank you for coming to meet me, and I wish you all the joy and happiness that life can offer. I’m sure that one day I will hear of you and your sculptures again. And I am sure they will be talked about with reverence.’

Bel stood up, every single muscle in her body taut with the tension of holding her emotions in check, and reached up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, Laurent, and God bless you.’

Then she began to walk away from him.

A few seconds later, she felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘Bel, please, if you ever change your mind, know that I am waiting for you. Au revoir, my love.’ And then he turned and ran swiftly across the grass in the opposite direction.

26

Somehow Bel got through the following twenty-four hours and the special dinner that had been prepared for her by the da Silva Costas.

‘Sadly, we won’t be there to celebrate with you on your wedding day,’ Heitor said as the family toasted her with champagne. ‘But we want to wish you and your fiancé all the happiness in the world.’

After dinner, they presented her with a beautiful Limoges china coffee pot and a set of cups, to remind her of the time she had spent in France. And as the family dispersed from the table, Heitor smiled at Bel.

‘Are you happy to be going home, Izabela?’

‘I am looking forward to seeing my family. And my fiancé, of course,’ she added quickly. ‘But I will miss Paris very much.’

‘Perhaps one day, when you see the Cristo monument on the top of Corcovado Mountain, you will tell your children how you came to be present as it was created.’

‘Yes, I feel honoured that I have been,’ Bel agreed. ‘How are you progressing with it?’

‘As you know, Landowski has almost finished the four-metre model, and now I must find somewhere to go which has room for me and my draftsmen to enlarge the scale to thirty metres. Landowski will begin work next week on the full-sized head and the hands. He told me when I last saw him that he had had Senhor Brouilly take casts of both your and Senhorita Lopes de Almeida’s hands as possible prototypes. Who knows,’ Heitor said, ‘one day, those elegant fingers of yours may end up casting benediction on Rio from the top of Corcovado Mountain.’